Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Federal Sports Minister Pir Aftab Shah Jilani said on Monday that Pakistan will welcome India if they opted to come here for a much-awaited cricket series scheduled for January-February 2009.

Jilani told reporters that Pakistan will show "sportsman spirit" by hosting India in a friendly environment and urged the Indian government to clear the eagerly-awaited tour of India"s cricketers.

"We don"t believe in mixing sports and politics," said Jilani, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). "There may be tensions between the governments but sports shouldn"t suffer. The cricket series (against India) should go on and I want assure India that if decided to send its team to Pakistan, we will host it in a befitting manner," he added.

India are scheduled to tour Pakistan from January 4 to play three Tests, five One-day Internationals and a Twenty20 International. But the series is in doubt because of the strained relations between Pakistan and India in the wake of the Mumbai killings.

Media reports coming from India suggest that the Indian government has decided against clearing its cricket team"s visit to Pakistan.

Indian cricket board (BCCI), however, has rejected such reports saying that a final decision on the fate of the Pakistan tour is yet to be taken by the government. Jilani, who took over as Sports Minister last month, is planning to begin a campaign to lift Pakistan sports.

He will be meeting the country"s sports legends in the coming days in a bid to devise a comprehensive strategy to boost national sports. Jilani said that he will also be meeting top officials of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) and other sports bodies to find out the reasons behind Pakistan"s embarrassing slump at the international arena